by Matt Thompson (Ethanol Producer Magazine) In October 2018, construction began on Ace Ethanol’s cellulosic ethanol plant in Stanley, Wisconsin. The plant will be the first to incorporate D3Max’s corn kernel fiber-to-ethanol process, and will help the plant increase its yields and produce higher-protein distillers dried grains with solubles, all without increasing the plant’s energy consumption.

…

Once the pilot plant was built, Ace and D3Max signed a contract for Ace to complete the pilot testing of the technology. Testing began in March 2017 and ran nearly every week until October of that year.

“I think we ran into unexpected things most every week, but we learned from them, and we worked through many phases of development in order to come up with what we think is the ideal process for us for converting the fiber to ethanol,” says Neal Kemmet, president and general manager of Ace Ethanol.

…

Testing showed enzymes from DSM and yeast from Lallemand were the best fit.

…

Also on the horizon is a plant that will incorporate ICM’s Generation 1.5 technology into its design. Development of the technology was completed in spring 2017, and the Element plant in Colwich, Kansas, broke ground in May 2018. Jason Friedberg, general manager of Element, says construction should be finished by mid-2019.

“The most recent iterations of these products that we launched last year help set a plant up for being able to implement our Generation 1.5 process, because the SMT delaminates the bran from the starch in a strategic way, so you can obtain a higher fiber recovery, and then the FST is built such that it removes that fiber from the starch stream,” Emme says. READ MORE